


On Board

by AndromedaPrime



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Mech Preg, Sparklings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:43:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndromedaPrime/pseuds/AndromedaPrime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cyclonus has just had a sparkling. Both he and Tailgate are terrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Board

**Author's Note:**

> So I properly got into MTMTE after having read the first thirteen or so issues a while back, and finished all the issues thus far. I am a little disappointed at the lack of carrier!Cyclonus. I also found myself in need of some Cygate fluff after the events of #47.

Between the atrocities of the war he had seen and committed (Kimia being the most known) and the way that most of the Autobots gave him a wide berth when he walked the corridors of the _Lost Light_ , Cyclonus had come to peace with what he had done. He had accepted that there would be very few that would ever actually like him.

Therefore, he wasn’t very open. Even with Tailgate, the little white bot who enjoyed spending all his waking moments with him. To open oneself up to another was to make yourself vulnerable, and that was the last thing that he needed.

He opened his optics and looked at the ceiling above him, noting that the medical bay was dark save for the light coming from the various machines. He was about to move before he realized there was an energon drip hooked into his systems. The reason why, he didn’t know. It wasn’t as if he’d been left on the edge of offlining permanently.

If anything, it was Tailgate he was worried for.

The process of emergence had begun a solar cycle ago, and Cyclonus dealt with it until he no longer could. He’d gone about the day perfectly fine, only clenching his servos into fists when the pains reached a peak, waiting for the peaks to subside.

Half the time he forgot he was carrying. He was so focused on other things that it took little pulses from the tiny spark linked to his to remind him of his state.

Next thing he knew, he was on servos and knees in the med ward, upper abdominal plating open and leaking a lot of fluid. Something bulged out from within his frame, and then split apart. Instinct took over and he caught the little frame that was ejected from his gestational chamber just before it could fall on the floor below. He split his chestplates open, and the small spark that had been linked to his since that night broke the physical form of their bond and soared into the little frame’s open spark chamber.

Out of the corner of his optics he noticed Tailgate’s visor flashing, followed a moment later by a high-pitched noise of confusion, and then by the sound of the minibot’s frame crashing to the ground.

He was assured that Tailgate would be fine and wake up in a few hours.

Cyclonus drummed his digits over his chassis before he actually realized there was no newspark there to be comforted by the notion. He sat up in berth and looked to his right. Seeing nothing but some more space and a wall there, he looked to his left.

Tailgate was on the other berth, still passed out. The shock of watching his suitemate and best friend in the throes of emergence, birthing a sparkling that looked _strangely like him_ , had been too much for his processor to handle in one go.

In the space between their berths, Cyclonus noted, was a small incubation chamber. Within it, the sparkling.

 _His_ sparkling. His _and Tailgate’s_ sparkling.

He was able to pinpoint the exact date of conception. The number of times they had interfaced was high, but the number of times they had merged sparks was twice. The first time was also their first time interfacing, but that was stellar cycles ago.

The second time was more recent, and the most obvious contender for having resulted in the little sparkling in the incubation chamber.

The bitlet’s presence had been felt immediately. He had noticed something was wrong with his frame, that he started getting tired a lot quicker than usual and that he felt something heavy on his spark. Why this was happening, however, he was unable to immediately put his digit on it.

One cycle when he was alone, he bared his spark and noticed the small point of light connected to his by a bright thread. Everything suddenly made sense.

She cooed in her recharge, flexing her tiny digits. His first thought was that he was glad she didn’t have his digits as it was likely she would scratch him. No, her digits were blocky, like her sire’s.

Velocity had exclaimed aloud when the sparkling came to life in her carrier’s arms that she was tiny. “Too tiny!” she’d half-squeaked, quickly taking her from Cyclonus’s arms (and ignoring the terrified/protective snarl that rose from the violet-plated mech’s vocalizer).

In the end, it wasn’t an issue of her being extremely weak and small. She was healthy, as Velocity claimed. Her stature was explained by, well, the fact that she was indeed Tailgate’s sparkling.

Cyclonus steeled himself and slowly reached for the bitlet, hoping his optics weren’t deceiving him and that this was all truly real. The moment the sharp tips of his digits tenderly touched the bitlet’s frame, bright blue optics flickered online. He watched as little optics blinked once, then a little face turned toward him.

He supposed he really was supposed to feel an overwhelming form of love in that moment. But what he also felt was a pang of what felt like fear.

Quiet, melodic chirps filled the room as she reached out for him, blinking her optics at him. Still, he was hesitant to pick up his newly sparked offspring.

“Ohhhhhhh…”

Cyclonus glanced up to see Tailgate’s visor gradually come online, adding yet another source of light to the darkened med bay. He watched as the Minibot slowly moved his limbs and sat up on the berth, murmuring to himself in undertone before raising his voice to say “Oh, Cyclonus, I had the weirdest dream.”

Keeping his vocal tone even, Cyclonus replied, “What happened in your dream?”

Tailgate laughed, the sound very loud in the otherwise quiet room. “I h-had the weirdest dream,” Tailgate said in a high-pitched voice (quite a feat, given the already natural state of his vocal tone), “that you and I were in the med bay here on the ship, and that you had a sparkling! A sparkling, of all things!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes! C-can you believe me, that’s… haha _hahaha_ , that’s weird isn’t it? The sparkling also looked like me! Isn’t that weird, Cyclonus?”

Cyclonus decided that he wouldn’t answer. His lack of answer prompted the Minibot to turn toward him. The jet only stared at the Minibot, watching and waiting for reality to click in the other bot’s processor. He watched as comprehension dawned in Tailgate’s processor, watched as the white and blue mech got off the berth and wobbled on his pedes, staring downward at the sparkling in the incubation chamber.

She was busy mouthing at her carrier’s digits, chirping quietly. Cyclonus tore his gaze from Tailgate and used his other arm to hold onto the bitlet, lifting her out of the chamber and cradling her to his chassis. All the while, she continued mouthing at his sharp-tipped fingers.

“Cyclonus?” A moment of quiet passed, and then, “Is the bitlet… is it real? Is this real?”

“Yes Tailgate. All of this is real.”

The bitlet yawned and closed her optics, drawing her arms into her chassis and falling back into recharge.

“How come you didn’t tell me?”

“I could think on that question for a million more stellar cycles and I don’t think I could come up with a sufficient answer, Tailgate.”

The Minibot huffed and puffed himself up, trying to seem intimidating but to the war-weary, seasoned old mech, it did nothing for him (except make him think that the smaller bot was too cute in trying). “Cyclonus, you just had a sparkling. Why would you want to keep… a sparkling,” Tailgate gestured wildly at the tiny thing in the larger mech’s arms happily sleeping away, “a secret from me?” A terrified look suddenly came over his faceplates. “The sparkling… he’s mine, right?”

“ _She_ is the spitting image of you, Tailgate. What do you think?” Cyclonus answered tersely before he remembered he held the first sparkling in many millions of years in his arms. He softened his voice, but his glare was still harsh on the minibot. “You’re the only mech I bothered interfacing with in the past few millennia, so yes, she is yours.”

The minibot looked back up at the purple mech. “How do you know the sparkling’s a she?”

“What makes you so certain that the sparkling is a mech and not a femme?”

“I… I don’t know! That’s what I thought at first!”

“Keep your voice down or else you’re going to wake her up.” Cyclonus sighed and held the little bit in one arm. She was so small. “She told me herself.”

Tailgate didn’t move or speak. He only stared at the jet, the apparent carrier of his sparkling, for a long, long while. In that while, the sparkling continued sleeping, making soft noises every so often. She was blissfully unaware of the ruckus that her arrival had caused aboard the ship. Every hour prior to this, Cyclonus had been roused to a state of half-wakefulness by the sound of loud conversations outside the door to the medbay, where one voice pleaded for Cyclonus, Tailgate, and the bitlet to be left alone, and the other would demand to see them and ask Cyclonus _what the hell_ he thought he was doing in keeping the sparkling a secret.

“How?”

“In quiet moments, nearer to the end of this process,” Cyclonus laid on his side, putting the sparkling next to him on the berth, “I spoke to her and familiarized myself with her thoughts and words. At some point, I put forth suggestions of mech, femme, or without a designation.”

The sparkling stuck her glossa out into the air but didn’t wake. The image was apparently too much for Tailgate, as he put his servos to his faceplate and made a noise that Cyclonus only heard when someone was acting “cute” and others were reacting to it.

“And she decided that she liked the sound of “she” better. So unless she decides to change at some future point in time,” he stroked the bitlet’s cheekplates with a sharp-tipped servo, “she is a femme.”

Tailgate reached out for the sparkling. His digits touched her chassis. In response, she cooed and brought her servos up to her face. Cyclonus’s audios picked up the sound of the minibot’s intakes hitching in surprise. There was one part of him that felt it was right to hand her off to him, let her sire get to hold her, but the other part of him wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. She had been part of him until now.

It was still an odd thing, seeing her out in the open and not feeling her spark pulsing next to his. She was given a face for the first time.

How he had hoped she would come out looking like Tailgate.

“Oh. She’s… she’s so _beautiful_ , Cyclonus.”

Cyclonus smiled sadly, and thought to the reflection of himself that he’d seen in the mirror countless times. A face like a funeral indeed. “Far better that she came out looking like you than looking like I do.”

He didn’t notice that one of the minibot’s small servos moved slowly towards one of the arms that was holding onto the sparkling until Tailgate had cupped his underneath Cyclonus’s.

“Hey, don’t say that about yourself.”

Cyclonus decided not to respond. Both mechs stayed put, Cyclonus sitting on the berth and holding the sparkling, Tailgate standing before him and shifting his gaze between the purple mech and the little white femme.  

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Part of me refused to acknowledge that I was carrying. I saw the process as nothing more than an inconvenience and I thought that if I ignored it, it would go away. Or rather, that she…” Cyclonus trailed off, looking at the peacefully sleeping femme in his arms. There was a pain in his spark when he spoke the next few words. “I hoped that she would go away.”

Tailgate never removed his visor. However, they had been suite mates long enough for Cyclonus to know when the minibot was upset. White servos balled into fists.

“Then you should have come to the med bay earlier and asked for a termination. They still do those, do they? They did them, or I heard of them, before I got stuck for six million years.”

“Yes, they’re still an option. And I contemplated it. But I grew familiar with the weight on my spark and, eventually, I grew to love her. But I was still afraid of asking for help.”

“You know you would have had to-”

“I know that, Tailgate. Sparklings do not stay confined to their carrier’s spark and frame for eternity.”

The bitlet shifted in his arms, yawning. Cyclonus didn’t think he’d have ever borne something this small and fragile, something so small and beautiful. Three words would have summed his feelings up far better. He finally admitted them: “I was _afraid_.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“Her. Which is ridiculous as I have felt little fear after what I endured in the time of the war. Virtually nothing could make me cower in fear, yet this one does.”

“You’re not… you’re not cowering in fear.”

“I meant mentally and emotionally.”

“Oh, right.”

The femme stretched her tiny limbs out, yawning again. She made stressed noises. Something in Cyclonus’s spark set him on alert, but otherwise he was able to stay in the sitting position he was in.

It was frightening to him. Moreso for Tailgate, who had no previous knowledge. It would be even more frightening to the rest of the _Lost Light_ when they heard the news of the little sparkling. They wouldn’t be able to look her way without earning a reproachful glare from her large, purple carrier.

“How are we gonna do this, Cy?”

“Well I suppose we could ask for a smaller berth to be put between ours-”

“No! I mean, how are we going to take care of her? F-for Primus’s sake, you didn’t say anything and I’m just learning about all this but you’ve had time to wrap your processor around a-and I just don’t know what I’m going to do! I don’t know if I can be a good sire! I’m pretty sure I can be and you’re gonna be a great carrier b-but…”

Cyclonus stroked the bitlet’s faceplates, waiting out the minibot’s nervous bumbling. When Tailgate ceased his speaking, Cyclonus looked up and met the minibot’s visor. “You are either on board with me in raising this sparkling, or you are more than welcome to step away and out of my life, Tailgate. Those are your two choices.”

He prepared himself for either answer. Deep in his spark, he hoped Tailgate would stay.

He heard the Minibot hum to himself apprehensively.

A moment later, Tailgate scrambled onto the berth and plopped next to Cyclonus, sitting as he craned his neck to look at the sparkling. “I think she needs both of her creators with her. What do you think, bitlet?” Tailgate extended a digit and prodded the sparkling’s fist, bouncing up and down slightly when she opened her optics and fingers and closed her digits around his offered one.

The sparkling chirped and moved the digit in her grasp up and down, watching it in fascination, marveling at how she was able to make it do her bidding. When the digit bent in her grip, she loosened her hand and turned her helm to stare at her sire.

“Primus, she’s so pretty.”

“I would have kicked you out if you had implied otherwise.”

Tailgate laughed, the noise startling the bitlet. She blinked her optics at him, tiny frame jolting.

“Hey, you know what this means Cyclonus?”

The violet-armored mech only arched an optical ridge.

“This means I’m not the tiniest bot on the ship anymore!”

“Perhaps, but remember that she is only a sparkling. And she will grow.”

“Shh, let me dream.”

The little femme suddenly began fussing, grabbing at her carrier’s digits and putting them roughly in her mouth, getting her oral fluids all over them. She wanted something, but what it was, neither mech could tell.

Something pinged Cyclonus in the back of his processor, telling him that his feeding protocols were coming online. The bitlet wriggled in his grip and splayed her little hands over his left chestplate, whining. Cyclonus shifted that particular plate aside and reached in, pulling out a thick tube filled with energon that his frame had made specifically for the bitlet.

She squeaked and batted at the tube, chirping as Cyclonus placed the open end in her mouth. Her little engine rumbled contentedly as she began to feed.

“Look at that!” Tailgate looked at the sight of the large purple mech nursing the tiny white femme in awe. He placed his chin in his servos as he continued watching. “She tracked your feeding lines down really quickly!”

The word “tracked” stirred something in Cyclonus’s processor. He mulled on it for a little bit, watching the little femme in his arms, before he spoke. “Tracker.”

“Huh?”

“Tracker. That will be her designation.”

Tailgate mulled over it, stroking the bitlet’s helm. She warbled and kicked her little pedes as she fed. “Well,” he sighed, “it could be worse.”

“How so?”

“Well I was gonna say we should have named her Tailgate Junior.”

“Tailgate, that’s a terrible designation.”

Tracker curled her servos into fists and stretched them out into the air, chirping happily at her creators. She was slightly startled when her sire squeaked, but instead turned toward him, feeding line dropping out of her mouth. Tailgate brought his servos to his faceplates.

Cyclonus could almost see the smile on the minibot’s hidden mouth.

“Hi Tracker!”

The femme blinked at her sire, tilting her helm inquisitively.

“You don’t understand me, so you don’t really know this but,” Tailgate traced little circles on her helm, giggling, “I’m your sire. And I really love you. And guess what?”

_Chirr?_

“This mech holding you is your carrier. And he loves you too!”

Tracker stared at Tailgate a moment, then stuck her glossa out at him. Cyclonus couldn’t help the laugh that escaped from his vocalizer.

For the first time in a long, long time, his spark was at peace.


End file.
